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Thursday, 21 January 2016

A New Book Project | A Wilder Life

Hello. It is I, the owner of this very neglected blog. I have returned to share a very exciting project that I started working on in August of 2014. As of today, I hold the finished product in my hands and it's beautiful.

This is Wilder Quarterly's first book, A Wilder Life, and it's a seasonal guide to "getting in touch with nature" which includes chapters on seasonal recipes, apothecary, DIY, foraging, and self-reliance among many other topics. It's a project that I'm proud to have been a part of, not least because the book is a thing of beauty and my illustrations share pages with work by photographers Krysta Jabczenski and Claire Cottrell.

Autumnal produce

I was asked to create watercolour illustrations to accompany many of the themes around nature, including seasonal produce to grow in your garden, medicinal plants to collect for tinctures, teas and homemade beauty products and wildlife to spot throughout the year.

Healing gemstones

These spot sized illustrations can be found in list from throughout the book - the crystals illustrate a chapter on beauty and healing.

"Different cultures use crystals and gemstones differently - some complementary therapies encourage placing the stones on the body to connect to the body's energy fields or chakras, while others prefer the use of wands or pendulums. As nature lovers, we prefer to appreciate the stones for what they are: marvels of nature."

A Seasonal Apothecary

The book contains a wealth of information on using foraged plants as well as spices and herbs to treat illness, soothe anxiety, boost the immune system and treat the skin along with many other uses. A recipe I'm excited to try is for a 'Calendula Salve' which uses the orange flower pictured above in a balm to soothe dry and cracked skin.

Colourful American birds

I also painted a series of still life watercolours that didn't quite make it into the final publication but that I thought I'd share below, because I quite like them (and waste not want not!).

An At-Home Herbalist Pharmacy

Tasks to Do Around the Home

And there you have it. A big project that took up many months last year, which has cumulated in a book I'm extremely excited to take some time out with, with a cup of tea and a cosy corner. It's always a pleasure to work with independent and interesting clients, and Wilder Quarterly publish content that's "for people enthralled by the natural and growing worlds....‘a life through the lens of the growing world’— indoors and out, culture, travel, food and design." Which sounds just about perfect to me.